Scorned Woman Breaks Political Ranks

Donna Hanover, the first lady of New York who’d rather be known these days as a first-rate New York actress, threw away the script.

According to the scenario most political wives live by, Hanover should have soldiered through silently when her husband, New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, last week confirmed he has a “very good friend” and told the world he and his wife are splitting up. Hanover was supposed to perform nobly in public, then rush home to cry in her hankie in private.

But she didn’t. Not this wife. No way.

Think of Lee Hart or Hillary Rodham Clinton, Giuliani’s New York Senate opponent--political wives whose husbands’ private lives became public business. Both wives refrained from publicly discussing the strains in their marriage.

Hanover, by contrast, offered the most modern interpretation of the political wife when she tearfully stood in front of Gracie Mansion, confirming all the cheesy gossip about her husband’s extracurricular love life. Political observers can think of no other occasion in which a first lady outed her husband in this fashion.

Hanover’s statement last week struck some as a brave defense of her own self-esteem, and others as the ultimate act of personal and political vengeance.

Donna Rice Hughes, whose fling with then-Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado in 1984 cost him a chance to live in the White House, called Hanover’s action gutsy. “I would think that an immediate reaction for most women facing this situation would be to stand up and be bold,” said Hughes, who runs an anti-pornography organization in Virginia.

Former U.S. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, now president of the American Assn. of Publishers, said that, far from being a mistake, Hanover’s announcement was at once impulsive and “a human reaction that any of us would have.” In a column in the Wall Street Journal, former White House speech writer Peggy Noonan agreed, calling the whole matter “ragged and human” and describing Hanover’s remarks as “a pained aria.”

Former New York Congresswoman Geraldine A. Ferraro pointed out that the marital woes in Gracie Mansion were no secret. “She stood by him and did what she had to do under tough circumstances,” Ferraro said. “I think basically she was hurt. She said to herself, ‘I’ve shut my mouth on this for seven years, and now I’m going to say what I want.’ ”

Ferraro insisted that Hanover did not lash out as an act of revenge. “She’s not that kind of person.”

Yet rather than offer some grand statement about the changing role of the political wife, Sheila Tate, press secretary to former First Lady Nancy Reagan, said Hanover looked like “a sad example of an angry woman.” Speaking out about her husband’s sex life didn’t do her any good, Tate said, adding: “She’s not a victim now, she’s lashing out. I don’t think she brought any credit on herself by doing this.”

Without mentioning names, Hanover told reporters last week that her husband had first been involved with a staff member--his former press secretary, Cristyne Lategano, who, like the mayor, continues to deny the affair--and now with another woman. Indeed, the mayor has been seen extensively in the company of Judith Nathan, 45, a single mother whose daughter attends the same private school as 14-year-old Andrew and 11-year-old Caroline Giuliani.

“I had hoped that we could keep this marriage together,” Hanover’s extraordinary statement began.

The Giuliani family drama--along with the Republican mayor’s recent diagnosis of prostate cancer--has thrown into question whether he will continue his race for the U.S. Senate against Mrs. Clinton.

Hanover, 50, and Giuliani, 54, met on a blind date in 1982. She was one of four daughters of a Navy officer, a blond Miami television personality, a Stanford University and Columbia Journalism School graduate divorced from her first husband. Giuliani, whose marriage to a second cousin had been annulled, was a corruption-busting federal prosecutor. He proposed at Walt Disney World, and as his political fortunes soared, she made an ideal companion: upbeat, supportive and soon, a mother.

At the time, recalled Ferraro, “she was so in love with Rudy, talking about what a strong, wonderful guy he was.”

Hanover, who declined to be interviewed, campaigned fiercely for Giuliani and was at her husband’s side when he was sworn in as mayor in 1993. Soon the rumors about his affection for his press secretary were circulating. Hanover stopped using her husband’s surname. She expanded her television work, anchoring a Food Network show and a morning program on Fox TV.

Branching into acting, she portrayed Ruth Carter Stapleton in the movie “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” appearing also in “Ransom,” “Just the Ticket” and “Superstar.” Hanover also played roles on the television shows “The Practice,” “Sex & the City” and “Ally McBeal.” She has had recurring roles on “Law and Order,” “One Life to Live” and “Family Law.”

Hanover was scheduled to appear in a popular off-Broadway play called “The Vagina Monologues” but withdrew when her husband announced he had cancer.

With her husband’s close relationship with his press secretary a constant source of tabloid news, Hanover became a non-presence during his reelection campaign in 1996. Her last public appearance at City Hall was in January 1998. On occasion, if Giuliani entered a room while Hanover was in it, she would leave.

In a television interview two months ago, Hanover was asked if she had any regrets about life in Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s elegant official residence along the East River, where the couple have continued to live.

“Why don’t we move on to something else?” she suggested.

McGill University historian Gil Troy, a specialist in the study of American first ladies, said he suspects that Hanover is a spouse who had had enough and that she acted out of good, old-fashioned anger.

Up until that moment, Troy said, Hanover was doing a good job of living within the publicly accepted secret that she and her husband dwelt in separate universes.

“This wasn’t just a career separation. It wasn’t just Ernestine Bradley (wife of former Sen. Bill Bradley) living somewhere else because that’s where her job was. We’ve gotten a little used to that,” Troy said. What was striking about the Hanover-Giuliani relationship was that “she was saying, ‘I’m not even going to pretend we’re keeping this marriage alive.’ ”

Even so, he continued, in a news conference on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Hanover declared how precious her 16-year marriage was to her after her husband was diagnosed with cancer. “She basically gives him this gift in the wake of prostate cancer, then he turns around and throws it in her face,” Troy said. “She should run for Senate, I think.”

In another lifetime, pre-Gary Hart and pre-Bill Clinton, this kind of domestic warfare might have destroyed the reputations of either or both parties. Recent polls show neither the mayor’s cancer nor infidelity has affected his popularity in the Senate race. Giuliani and Clinton continue to run essentially neck and neck.

Former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, now practicing law in Manhattan, explained that the rules are changing, almost too fast to keep up with. Cuomo added that the Giuliani-Hanover story has consumed his city. At a seminar for inner-city high school students last week, “all they wanted to talk about was the Giuliani situation.”

But even as they were panting for details, Cuomo said he asked the students if they thought the mayor’s personal life was relevant to the way he was doing his job. With a shout, he said, the audience said no.

Cuomo is such a devoted fan of Hanover that he said he would like to have her as a daughter-in-law. “She’s like a loaf of beautiful Sicilian white bread--beautiful and sweet, but not sugary.” But he said that in most cases, “New Yorkers are reacting to Rudy as a force, not Donna.” He said most people don’t like the idea that Giuliani apparently failed to inform his wife that he intended to seek a separation before he announced it.

Did Hanover do the right thing?

“Absolutely,” said Edward I. Koch, a Giuliani predecessor at Gracie Mansion. “He trampled on her. Nobody is supposed to bear that.” Koch said Hanover may have acted out of revenge, “but revenge is sweet.”

Hanover and her children, meanwhile, spent Mother’s Day weekend visiting her parents in Valencia, Calif. Hanover played golf with her son and had a pedicure with her daughter. She spoke to her husband and his mother. It is not known if the mayor sent her flowers.